I had the most amazing experience this morning. I went into the school where we did the Minds on Media PD Day (see previous post) a few weeks ago. I went in to do some follow-up work. The Extended French teacher wanted to digitize her students children books. We set up a wiki where students could share voicethreads of their scanned in illustrated story books with narration en francais and then comment on each others work en francais.
While I was there, another teacher stopped me to explain their student-created interactive element websites for chemistry. One teacher asked me to brainstorm some ways to support some of our students who get between 50%-59% in grade 9 applied mathematics, so they are prepared for grade 10 applied mathematics. A teacher decided to work with the law teacher to do a lesson on Creative Commons and legal aspects. The Student Success Teacher talked about moving to an electronic communication method for supporting at-risk students. When I went to search for equipment (headphone/microphone headsets) that had previously sat around gathering dust, they were out BEING USED! 
Lastly, one teacher who has been integrating tons of wonderful tasks into her class has now looked at her assessment practices and decided to improve the way she tracks and marks to be more holistic and appropriate. This type of love of learning spreads beyond simply doing a “tech” project, but infects us with a great desire to be better teachers.
Creativity, innovation and risk-taking is spreading like wild fire through the school. I mean, they were a radical bunch to begin with , but I think the Minds on Media PD Day combined with Teacher Notebooks in hand have certainly helped empower this passionate group. The positive energy is palpable – a great staff.
It has made my day! Now to go battle the snow covered roads for a drive to the next school on my list today.
